Mulligan
by TheArchimage
Summary: Ton wakes up with a splitting headache the morning after the office party, but he distinctly remembers Retsuko's retort to his rap takedown. Could she finally be learning after all?


Each ring of the alarm clock lanced through Ton's head and splattered his brain across his pillow. He brought a heavy fist down on top of it to shut it up, but missed and ended up tumbling out of bed in a tangle of sheets. It was definitely looking like one of those mornings where he woke up and thought to himself, _It's been a long day._ He briefly considered calling out sick but dismissed the idea; if he started wussing out he'd never be able to convince his employees to come in when they were sick either. He thrust his hand out with a furious roar and grabbed the alarm clock by the cord, yanking it out of the wall. His enemy was silenced and his bloodlust was partially appeased. His head pounded as alcohol wreaked its terrible vengeance. That was right, the office drinking party had been last night. Now he really could not call in sick; if he did everyone would know Ton was getting old and couldn't handle his beer anymore, and he would literally rather die than be known as a lightweight. He could only open his eyes as tiny slits against the morning sun and cursed himself for not closing the blinds last night. A rookie mistake. Maybe he really was losing his touch.

He began piecing together what had happened last night, starting at collapsing face-first into the bed with all his clothes still on and working backward. He remembered having to try four times to unlock the front door of his apartment. He remembered slurring his home address to the cabbie. He remembered waking up on the floor of the lounge and having to arrange rides home for everyone simply because he was the only one left that was even conscious. Now that was a sign of a successful drinking party! And before that…

He remembered seeing a brief glimpse of a demon. A fury descended from the heavens to inhabit the body of a tiny red panda that laid waste to the room and left him utterly defeated. He _remembered_. His lips curled into an evil smile. He fought back peals of laughter as he rose to his feet. Shitty boss, huh? The meek and timid junior accountant called him a shitty boss? Well now he _definitely_ had to go into work.

He opened up the fridge and mixed together his patented hangover cure: two eggs, a banana, coffee, and ginger. Blend them together and drink in one gulp. It tasted like death but he could already feel his headache recede. A quick shower gave the cure some time to work its magic, then he had to get dressed and out the door. He hopped into his car with a skip in his step (men as important as him did not take the train into work). He took a detour around 9th street, it was always backed up around the first of the month, and let his mind wander on his way to work. Shitty boss. Well, it was about time Calendar stood up for herself. No, Retsuko. Her name was Retsuko.

For a moment there he was honestly afraid he was going to have to fire her. It seemed like nothing he did could light a fire under her. He prodded at her and she shrunk away. He insulted her right to her face and she just stood there and took it. It would be one thing if she honestly was not bothered by his management style, but then she went behind his back to bitch about him to the media. And even after he made it perfectly clear (or at least it would have been clear to him, which was the same thing) that he was pissed because she wouldn't tell him off, she went over his head and complained to the CEO! That one hurt. It was a clear signal to upper management that he could not keep control over his lackeys, and that was dangerous. He could have gotten shunted off overseas for a slip-up like that.

Okay, so he had gone a little far with the hazing. He was a big man, he could admit fault, even if he had been provoked because it seemed like nothing he did stuck. But why couldn't she just tell him directly he was being a dick? He missed the camaraderie he had with his old boss. His boss called him a slob, Ton called him a sonuvabitch, they'd laugh and have a beer together after work where they referred to each other as "asshole" and "dipshit" respectively. But the ones coming out of high school and university today, they had no backbone. No sense of entitlement, no self-confidence. The millennials were bad enough, the ones replacing them were even worse. Hell in a handbasket. Whole country was going to hell in a handbasket.

He parked his car and squeezed out, straightening his tie on the way to the lobby. Chief Komiya was doubled over waiting for the elevator, one hand on a pillar as he took deep breaths in and out. His face was pale and his eyes were bloodshot, obviously still suffering the worst effects of a hangover. Ton called out to him with a voice a few decibels over what he knew was necessary, "Hey, Komiya! Some party last night, eh?"

The meerkat smiled, but there was more than a little bit of a wince in it. "Oh, yes, really quite something! It'll go down in history, Director sir!"

A suspicion grew in Ton's mind. "You don't remember a damn thing, do you?"

Chief Komiya's head retracted between his shoulders. "Er, things are a little bit hazy, now that you mention it… but that's the mark of a great office party, isn't it?"

He let out a belly laugh and agreed, "That's right! That's exactly right! A party you remember is a party that wasn't worth showing up to!" Well, Komiya was a tiny man. He was the kind of person that would try to keep up with Ton even though he was somewhere between a quarter to a third of the Director's size. He should have expected him to get blackout drunk.

He tried again with the next person he saw. "Hey, Tsubone! You get home okay after last night?"

"Somehow," she hissed, one hand on her forehead. "One minute I'm ordering my third beer, the next I'm at home with a migraine. I drank so much I don't remember anything in between! Ugh, what a mess!"

… Huh. That was weird. Why could no one remember it? That vision of Retsuko in face paint and a forked tongue, screaming with a rage that could shake the heavens had burned itself into his memory. Was everyone else repressing it or something? He did not know what he would do if she got so drunk she forgot as well.

The reality was even worse. The moment Retsuko laid eyes on him she stiffened. She began vibrating and tears formed at the corners of her eyes. "G-Good morning…" she stammered as Ton laid down the day's books on her desk. He studied her face for clues, and that made her even more nervous. "I-I am so sorry about last night!" she blurted out before he could even greet her. She bowed her head low enough to smack her forehead against the carpet and groveled. "Drunkenness is no excuse for how I acted!"

And she was right back to being passive, unserious, doormat of a Calendar. Three steps forward, two steps back. Part of him was so utterly discouraged he wanted to tell her to pack her stuff and leave. He thought he had made a breakthrough, but it seemed a red panda did not change its stripes so easily. The only thing that stayed his hand was an ironclad conviction, a personal code: the end of the month office party was a chance to blow off steam. He would never fire anyone for conduct at one of them no matter how drunk anyone did or didn't get. And he really was proud of her for that one moment, it would be a shame to let a spitfire like that skip out and find employment elsewhere. At the same time he did not want to entirely let her off the hook. Calendar would never understand what she did right if he stopped riding her ass now.

"What the hell are you talking about?" He showed his back to her. "I drank so much I don't remember anything about last night." Then he clomped off to his desk. The status quo, then. He would give her a little more rope, see if he could get her to let some of that steam off inside the office. Now that he knew it was possible it would not sit right with him to give up.

He eased himself into his chair and leaned back with a sigh. He was dead tired. The day had barely even started and he had already put in some top tier supervising. He deserved a vacation.


End file.
